Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events, day 1,335

On Tuesday, October 21, 2025, how things are going:

Fighting

• One person was killed and three others were hurt in the Kherson Regional State Administration’s post on Telegram, according to the Kherson Regional State Administration.
• Without providing further information about the number of people killed or when the attack took place, the 7th Corps of Ukraine’s Air Assault Forces reported in a Facebook post that a Russian assault group had killed several Ukrainians in recent days while attacking the Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk.
• Private Ukrainian energy company DTEK wrote in a post on Telegram that Russian forces attacked a coal enrichment plan in the Dnipropetrovsk region of Ukraine.
• In a post on Telegram, Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov reported that two people were killed in a Ukrainian drone attack on the village of Yasnye Zori in the Russian border region of Belgorod.

diplomacy and politics

• Donald Trump, the president of the United States, said on Monday that Ukrainians’ chances of winning the war were “questionable.”
• According to a summary of the call released by the US State Department, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Affairs Minister Sergey Lavrov discussed “advancing a durable resolution to the Russia-Ukraine war, in line with Trump’s vision.”
• In response to rising threats from Ukraine and NATO nations, Russian lawmakers have proposed a law mandating life imprisonment for anyone who engages in sabotage.

Budapest debates

Ukraine and other European nations should be included in upcoming negotiations between Trump and Vladimir Putin, according to French President Emmanuel Macron, who spoke to reporters in Slovenia.
• The Ukrainians should be present when they discuss Ukraine’s future. The Europeans should be present when they discuss the security implications for Europeans, Macron said.
• Macron added that Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the president of Ukraine, is scheduled to attend their own meeting on Friday in London under the umbrella of “the coalition of the willing.”
• Zelenskyy stated to reporters on Monday that he hopes to be invited to Budapest, whether the invitation is “in a format where we meet as three or, as it’s known, shuttle diplomacy.”

Weapons

• Zelenskyy claimed that his country is still “working with the United States” to secure “the necessary number of Patriot systems,” that he had spoken with weapons manufacturers in Washington, DC, and that support is needed at “the political level in Washington.”